Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Warmup time! Eventually I'll apply this color-sampling technique to line drawings. There's something liberating about working on a single layer as opposed to the 80 bazillion adjustment layers I'm used to fiddling with.

Monday, November 12, 2007

I tried to be all Ashley Wood and bust out the halftone screen on this color study. Was so stupidly easy. Copy-merge the colored stuff into a new file, grayscale it, crank the levels until only the darkest, shadowy bits remain, ligthen those shadows, then convert to bitmap. Paste halftone back into original color file and set to "multiply." Combine this effect with a squared-off directional brush and -- hey presto -- instant indie-comic-I-couldn't-be-bothered-to-finish.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

I'm not so hot when it comes to doing paintery work, so this is my first "training wheel" attempt at a quickie-style color digital piece without first working in grayscale. Found this random image of the the lovely Lucy Pinder (British glamor girl who shows up at lot in the "men's interest" section of the magazine stand), and just color picked/dabbed. Likeness, proportions and posture are off. I'm more interested in how colors behave/mix, and where shadows and highlights wind up. My hope is that I do enough of these kinds of exercises, some good stuff will stick.

Okay, pared back the glazing to fit Kurt's line art. Think it works a little better. More basic. /// On a coincidental note, I recently stumbled upon books 1 & 2 of a manga called Kurohime, chronicling the adventures of a gunslinger witch who fires magical creature-bullets from these chiseled hand cannons with samurai sword hilts. KatakuraMasanori's got a dynamic, humorous style that has loads of character. And...also...sex appeal.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

A little explanation : Some years back I turned down a bizarre commission request for a "half-cowboy, half-witch" on the grounds that it was too ridiculous to depict well. My brother Kurt took the challenge and came away with this illustration, which I then colored well past the cell-shaded treatment it probably deserved. It contains a "tartan" texture from Mayang's Texture Libary as well as a fuzzed-out sky. There's no strong light source, and the motion blur is overkill, not to mention irrational since her hair is blowing in the opposite direction. I realize all this now, but oh well -- hope you like anyway it, Kurt! Er, and you too, nameless commission person...